


1000 Times

by OfEndlessWonder



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6428536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfEndlessWonder/pseuds/OfEndlessWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And she should step away, but her desk is at her back and she’s drunk and she doesn’t want to move, doesn’t know if she can. She knows that it’s a mistake as soon as she shifts under Kara’s hold, but she’s so close and Cat doesn’t know if she ever will be again. She can blame it on the alcohol in the morning so she leans forward and she presses her lips against Kara’s because she’s weak, Kara makes her weak, and she’s never been good at letting an opportunity slip through her fingers when it’s right there in front of her, ready for the taking."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1000 Times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [residentgeekmonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/residentgeekmonkey/gifts).



_You can make me wait forever_   
_Push me away and tell me never_   
_I don't mind, no I don't mind it_   
_I would come back 1000 times_

* * *

 

The first time it happens, the fault lies wholly and completely with Cat, and she thinks that she’ll curse herself for it for as long as she lives.

It’s another late night in her office, the lights dimmed to spare her eyes which have been staring at bright computer screens all day. She’s more than a little tipsy, because it’s almost eleven p.m. and she’s missed her son’s bedtime, and the few employees that she’d managed to corral to stay behind a few extra hours had left long ago.

Cat shoots a baleful glance at the desk that sits outside her office, because her assistant had disappeared several hours ago and hasn’t been seen since. Cat knows that there are distinct disadvantages to having your assistant be a superhero, and the only reason Cat hasn’t hired a second assistant is equal parts because of the disaster that had occurred with the last one, and because she doesn’t want to make Kara feel like she’s not good enough at her job.

And she shouldn’t even _care_ about her assistant’s damn feelings. Cat Grant didn’t _do_ feelings, not at work. But Kara was wearing her down, slowly but surely, and it’s getting harder and harder for Cat to pretend that she doesn’t care about the girl beyond the four walls of this office.

She does care, though. She cares so much that it kills her, sometimes. She worries about her when she’s off flying the skies without a care in the world for her own safety, because she has a hero’s hubris and she thinks she’s unbreakable. She worries about her when she’s in the office and her smiles aren’t as sunny as usual, wonders what’s bothering her outside of work, and she can tell herself that it’s just because Cat doesn’t want her employees personal lives interfering with their work but god, that’s such a lie.

She lies to herself about Kara a lot.

The biggest one is always, always, that she doesn’t have feelings for her. That it’s just an infatuation because she’s pretty and she looks at Cat like she admires her. Because it’s been seven months since she’s been on a date and she’s just lonely.

Even Cat doesn’t believe those lies anymore.

When she hears a soft knock on the glass door of her office, Cat jumps, because it’s late and she hadn’t expected anyone else to be in the building. When she raises her head and turns she thinks she shouldn’t be surprised to find Kara hovering in the doorway. Her glasses are on her nose but her hair is down, flowing around her shoulders as she takes a hesitant step into the room.

“Kiera, you’re still alive.” Kara had revealed herself to Cat shortly after the Balcony Incident, mostly to relieve some of her guilt, Cat is sure, but she’d gained the courage all the same. Cat had rolled her eyes and told her that she already _knew_ , but at Kara’s wide-eyed, terrified look, Cat had quietly admitted that she was glad that Kara trusted her enough with the secret, and assured her that she’d keep it safe. “City still standing?”

She already knows that Supergirl had triumphed – she’d been watching the news coverage of her latest adventure closely all afternoon, and it’s not because she _cares_ , it’s just because she needs to be aware, won’t be scooped on a story about her own hero.

(She’s not even sure she believed that herself, anymore).

“Y-yes, Miss Grant.” It’s still fresh, this new facet of their relationship, the one where Kara is not keeping a part of herself from Cat, and it’s made Kara more nervy, much like she had been during the first few weeks of working here.

“Why are you here?” Cat squints at her from across the room as Kara fiddles with her glasses, because it’s late and she must be tired, and she should probably be at home in bed resting.

“I felt bad about leaving so early this afternoon.” She’s still hovering in the doorway, waiting for an invitation that Cat doesn’t extend. “I knew you had a lot to do and that you’d probably still be here so I thought… I-I’d come and see if you needed any help.”

Cat stares at her for one long moment – long enough to make her shuffle her weight nervously from one foot to the other. Long enough for her to look like she regrets coming over her in the first place, but Cat can’t help it because she’s just so _stunned_.

It’s the kind of caring personality that makes Kara so good at her job; it’s also one of the things that Cat hates the most about her. She wishes that she were cool, cold and callous, only caring about career progression – like Siobhan, almost, despite how poorly that had ended – because then Cat wouldn’t _care_ so much about her.

For her.

She’s also certain that Kara wouldn’t have lasted a week without it, but that’s not the _point_. Sometimes Cat wonders what would have happened had she not been left speechless for the first time in years by the girl during her interview, if she had hired someone else instead.

The last two years of her life wouldn’t have run quite so smoothly, she knows. But she also wouldn’t have these hopeless, idiotic, _impossible_ feelings for someone half her age.

“That’s very… kind of you, Kiera,” Cat says eventually, and she raises her gaze from the floor and up to Cat’s eyes for one brief second before looking away. “But you don’t need to be here. Go home, get some rest. I daresay you deserve it.”

“I’m already here…” She trails off, and Cat wonders why she’s so insistent on staying. Wonders if there’s a reason she’s avoiding her home, if something has driven her out of there and into this office instead.

“Is everything alright at home?” It’s the kind of question that Cat shouldn’t care enough to ask, but she’d said goodbye to all forms of professionalism when it came to Kara long ago.  

“Yes.” It’s a lie, but Cat doesn’t call her out on it. Instead she hums and turns away, and isn’t the least bit surprised when she hears tentative footsteps edging into the room until Kara’s stood looming over the arm of the couch. “I just… didn’t want to be alone tonight.” Her voice is quiet, her eyes fixed on the floor, and there’s something vulnerable about her that makes Cat ache to reach out and gather her into a hug. “It’s the anniversary of my parents death,” she whispers the words like saying them too loudly will make it more real, and Cat’s heart clenches tightly in her chest. “And usually I’d spend it with my sister but she’s out of town and I…”

“Sit down, Kara.” The use of her first name surprises her enough to have her head snapping up, and Cat curses herself for the slip. She brushes it off like she’s nothing, rising fluidly to her feet and pouring a fresh glass of scotch for herself and another for Kara. She makes a face at it when Cat places it down on the table in-front of her. “What?”

“I don’t… Alcohol doesn’t really do anything for me. I can’t get drunk.”

“Pity,” Cat murmurs, because sometimes, on her worst nights, drinking is the only thing that can help her forget.

Forget the way Kara smiles, bright as the sun. Forget the way she makes Cat’s hands shake and her heart quicken in her chest whenever she wears something sleeveless to show off those sinfully strong arms. Forget the way she wants her, so much that it consumes her; Kara consumes her, and Cat doesn’t know how long it will be before it burns her alive.

“I lost my father when I was seven,” Cat offers, taking a long gulp of scotch as she says the words, savouring the burn in the back of her throat and determinedly not looking Kara’s way as she feels the girl’s curious eyes on her face.

As a general rule, Cat doesn’t offer Kara snippets of her personal life, unless there is a lesson to be learned. But she’d come here looking for comfort, even if she won’t admit it. It’s not the first time, but it’s the first time that she’s been here this late without a cape wrapped around her shoulders like it could shield her from the world, and it makes Cat want to _try_.

“It wasn’t easy,” she continues, focusing on her fingers, wrapped tightly around her glass. “My mother… well, you’ve met her. I’m sure you can imagine what growing up with her was like.” She sees Kara’s hand moving out of the corner of her eye, stretching towards Cat before Kara seems to remember herself and pull it back, unsure. “But my father was soft and loving and kind and I missed him. I still do, sometimes.” She turns her head to face Kara, hates to see tears brimming in her eyes for the people that she’d lost.

God, a whole planet, her whole _life_ , at just thirteen years old.

Cat doesn’t know how she survived it.

She’s a walking miracle, and Cat knows that’s just one of the many things about her that make her extraordinary.

“I try not to think about them,” Kara admits, her voice quiet. “It hurts too much.”

“It doesn’t get any easier,” Cat tells her, though she thinks that by now she probably already knows that. “And it’s okay to still miss them. It’s okay to not want to be alone.”

“Thank you.” Her voice wavers, and for a moment Cat thinks that she may be about to cry. But then she catches herself, takes a deep, shaking breath before she reaches for the glass on the table, lifts it to her lips and takes a gulp, and Cat snorts when she sets it immediately back down, sputtering as she swallows. “That is the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“ _That_ is one of the finest bottles of scotch I own.”

“How do you drink that stuff?”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Cat concedes, because she’s had years to grow used to it. She’d taken her first sip when she was fifteen years old and hated it; it was another three years before she tried again, and many more before she could drink it without wincing.

She notices the faraway look in Kara’s eyes, the fact that she’s still hastily blinking away tears, and wishes she didn’t care enough to try and make her feel better.

“Still want to make yourself useful?” She asks, because the girl clearly needs a distraction and if it means Cat can get out of here and into her bed not long after midnight, she figures it won’t do any harm. Kara shoots her a shy, grateful look as she nods, and Cat hands her half the work she still has left to do and Kara gets on with it without a single complaint.

They work in silence for almost an hour, the only sound in the room the hasty scribble of a pen against paper or the tap of fingers against a screen, occasionally interrupted by the clink of glass on glass as Cat takes a sip of her drink, finishing Kara’s glass as well as her own when it becomes clear that she isn’t going to finish it herself.

Cat lets out a quiet sigh of relief when she finally finishes her work, stretching her arms above her head and wincing when she hears the bones crack. She sets her tablet down on the coffee table beside the two empty glasses just as Kara’s finishing up the last of the pages Cat had handed her to proof, and she hums with approval when Kara passes them back over.

“Thank you, Kiera.” Kara looks like she wants to say something about Cat conveniently forgetting her name after she’d used the right one not so long ago, but she wisely bites her tongue and doesn’t say a word. “I’d offer to call you a car, but I’m sure you can just…” Cat makes a gesture towards the window, and Kara’s lips twitch into a smile. “Will you be alright on your own?” She asks that with her back turned to her, so that Kara has no opportunity to see the worry on her face – she probably shouldn’t have had that second glass of scotch. Her head feels fuzzy, and she doesn’t feel as in control of her reactions as she would normally prefer.

“Yes,” Kara replies quietly, and when she speaks again her voice is much closer. “Thank you, Miss Grant.” Cat whirls to find Kara less than a foot away from her. She’s drunk enough that the sudden movement makes her sway on her feet, and Kara has to reach for her arm to steady her.

The touch makes her suck in a sharp breath, because Kara’s fingers are warm against her bare skin and it makes her head spin in a way that has nothing to do with the high alcohol content of her blood.

“For what?” Cat’s voice is more breathless than she would have liked, and she knows she should rip her arm away from Kara’s gentle touch, but she finds that she can’t move, especially when those blue, blue eyes peer into her own.

“For listening. For letting me stay. For… for always being there when I need it.” That part is whispered quietly, like she’s afraid of Cat’s reaction.

Cat’s a little afraid of her reaction too, though for a very different reason.

“That’s quite alright, Kiera.” She hopes the use of that name will snap Kara out of… whatever this is, will make her take a step back and put some distance between them, because that’s why Cat had started using it in the _first_ place.

But she doesn’t budge – if anything, her hold only tightens, fingertips digging into Cat’s skin and god, such a simple, single touch shouldn’t affect Cat this much but she can barely _breathe_ , let alone think, and she’s thought before that Kara would be her ruining, but she’d never realised just _how_ thoroughly she could destroy her until that moment, with Kara looking down at her with such soft eyes, Cat’s heart beating loud in her ears.

“It’s not.” Cat can’t help but let her gaze dip down to the girl’s lips – they look soft and so very inviting, and Cat needs to get out of there _right now_ or she’s going to do something she’ll regret.

Like kiss her stupid sunny assistant until she forgot about all the reasons why she shouldn’t.

“I know you think that personal and professional lives should be kept separate.” Cat wants to laugh at that, because she hasn’t been doing that herself when it came to Kara for a long, long time.

“There are some exceptions,” Cat tells her, relieved when her voice comes out steadier, this time. “This being one of them.”

“Thank you,” Kara repeats, and Cat bites her lip as her eyes dip to Kara’s mouth once again. Her throat feels dry and her head is spinning and Kara’s fingers are still burning, burning against her skin, the heady scent of her perfume and laundry detergent making Cat feel like she’s drowning.

And she should step away, but her desk is at her back and she’s drunk and she doesn’t _want_ to move, doesn’t know if she _can_. And she knows that it’s a mistake as soon as she shifts under Kara’s hold, but she’s so close and Cat doesn’t know if she ever will be again. She can blame it on the alcohol in the morning so she leans forward and she presses her lips against Kara’s because she’s weak, Kara makes her weak, and she’s never been good at letting an opportunity slip through her fingers when it’s right there in front of her, ready for the taking.

And oh, Kara’s lips are as perfect as Cat had always thought they’d be, soft and sweet and like a little piece of heaven. Kara sucks in a sharp breath at the contact, and Cat immediately pulls away.

But then Kara is tangling her free hand in Cat’s hair and _oh_ , she was never supposed to kiss her _back_. She was supposed to be surprised and maybe a little horrified that her boss was making a move on her. She was supposed to push Cat back or take a step away from her, shock and maybe a little anger that Cat had been so presumptuous swirling in stormy eyes, and Cat would be able to brush this off as a stupid mistake, claim to have forgotten all about it by the morning, and things would go on as normal.

But Kara’s tongue is pressing against the seam of her lips and she’s pushing Cat gently back against the edge of her desk and god, it would be so easy to part her lips and let herself be lifted onto the edge of it, to wrap her arms around Kara’s neck and give herself over to her like she’s wanted to for so many months.

God, she shouldn’t though. Because Kara is too sweet and too young and too innocent for Cat to taint with her old, tired bitterness. She shouldn’t have ever started this, because this… acknowledgement that Kara might want her back?

It’s going to destroy the both of them.

Cat can’t admit to what this is, can’t allow herself to fall for the girl any more than she already has. Kara deserves better than her. Deserves someone who can make her smile and hasn’t made her life a living hell for the past two years. Someone who isn’t fifty years old with two sons and chained to the empire that she’d painstakingly built by herself.

Kara deserved the world, and Cat would never be able to give it to her.

So she yanks her head back and stops Kara with a hand splayed against her chest when she tries to chase her lips. She watches the frown start to bloom on her face as Cat stares at her, sees the blown pupils and the flushed cheeks and the reddened lips and her resolve nearly crumbles, but she tells herself that this is for the best, that Kara will get over this (even as Cat wonders if she will ever be so lucky).

She knows there are several responses she could have to this. She could write it off as a drunken mistake, which would undoubtedly hurt Kara, but she would recover from quickly enough. She could tell Kara her reasoning for why this was a terrible idea, but that opened up the possibility that she would try to argue her way out of it, and Cat doesn’t know if she’d have the strength to resist them.

Instead, she doesn’t acknowledge it, and she thinks that that might be the most painful option of them all.

“Goodnight, Kiera.” She brushes past her, Kara too stunned to try and stop her, though Cat knows she could, effortlessly, if she wanted. “I trust you can see yourself out.”

Cat leaves, unable to resist taking one last glance back at Kara before she steps foot in her elevator.

She’s still stood facing Cat’s desk, though her hands are braced on the surface of it, her head bowed and Cat almost, almost turns and walks back towards her, wants to offer her the comfort that she desperately wants to give, despite the danger to them both.

But she has an iron will so she forces her gaze away, takes a step forward and slams her thumb on the button for the ground floor.

Tonight, she knows she will dream of blue eyes and soft kisses and warm skin, and wonders how many more bottles of scotch it will take to wipe the memory out of her head.

x-x-x

The second time it happens, it’s all Kara’s damn fault and Cat’s sure she’s going to be the death of her.

It’s two weeks after that first kiss, the one that creeps into Cat’s thoughts at the most inopportune moments. She’ll be pacing in-front of her desk during a staff meeting only to remember the feeling of the wood against her back and Kara’s body at her front. She’ll be sitting on her couch working away only to remember Kara looking down at her hands with that sad, lost puppy look on her face as she’d talked about the loss of her parents. She’ll be reaching for a bottle of scotch at her bar and remember the taste of Kara’s lips against her own.

She’s a wreck, and this was never supposed to happen and Cat can’t stop _thinking_ about her and she doesn’t know how she’s ever supposed to stop.

And Kara… She hurt her. Badly. Cat can feel pained, sad, accusing eyes resting on her through the walls of her office, but whenever she raises her head, Kara is quick to look away.

She barely looks at Cat at all, anymore. In meetings she’ll keep her eyes downcast, on her little pad of paper or her tablet. Cat never asks her to stay late, and Kara never appears on her balcony at night like she’d taken to doing ever since the day after she’d hurled Cat over the railing.

And Cat should be _happy_ about this, about the fact that she’s been successful in keeping the girl at arm’s length but instead she feels… empty, because sometimes she glances at Kara and she thinks that she might have broken her, and she hates herself for it.

It’s worth it, she keeps telling herself. It’s worth it, because if she ever gave Kara the slightest inclination that there could be a chance for them, she knows it’ll end in even more tears. Better to push her away now, before anything can ever start.

It’ll hurt them both less, in the long run.

She wonders how long it will before she stops believing that’s true.

Kara keeps her distance and it makes her ache but she allows it because it’s her fault. She’ll give the girl some time and space, she’ll suffer quietly with an assistant that can’t stand her for a little while longer before she calls her out on it.

She doesn’t expect Kara to call her out first.

“You kissed me.” She says it in the middle of the day, the sunlight streaming through Cat’s balcony window and illuminating her desk in a soft, warm glow, and Cat lifts her head from her computer screen and glares up at her assistant, standing with her hands splayed on Cat’s desk, leaning over it with fire in her eyes.

“ _Excuse_ me?” Cat’s eyes flit to the door of her office, but it is shut tight, locking out the outside world, and Cat is grateful that Kara had at least been _somewhat_ thinking when she’d stormed in here.

“You. Kissed. Me.”

“You seem to be mistaken, Kiera, if you could - ”

“ _No_.” Kara’s eyes flash, and Cat feels a thrill – Kara hasn’t looked at like this since the day she’d yelled at her for the first (and only, as her Kara Danvers persona, anyway) time. It had been the day Cat had started to really take note of her, and the sight of her anger sends an embarrassing shiver of desire down her spine. “For two weeks I’ve let you pretend that nothing happened but I’m _tired_ of trying to ignore it.”

“Brazen. I’m starting to mind it.” Cat’s voice is clipped, and she’s very aware of the fact that, though her employees tend not to glance into her office for fear of catching her attention, they are still very much in plain view of any prying eyes.

“You can’t kiss me and then walk away and pretend it never happened.”

“Actually, Kiera,” Cat drawls, pointedly looking away and refocusing her gaze on her screen. “I can.” It’s petty and stupid and she’s never been one for avoidance tactics but Kara… Kara makes her do a lot of things she normally wouldn’t. “If you could go and fetch - ”

“I want to talk about this,” she demands, and Cat’s lip curls a little because she never responds well to them, and Kara seems to realise her mistake, some of her anger fading in the face of Cat’s glare. “Please.”

“Not now,” Cat insists, because if she’s going to be forced to have this conversation it will not be here, sober, in the harsh light of day. Kara holds her gaze for a long moment, and Cat wonders if she’s about to refuse her.

“Fine.” There’s a petulant look on her face that makes Cat want to roll her eyes, but she has a right to be angry and Cat should have never been weak enough to give into the desire to kiss her. “Later?”

“Mm,” Cat reluctantly agrees, and wonders if it makes her a bad person, half-wishing for something mildly disastrous to occur that would require Supergirl’s immediate and continued attention. “Now, are you done letting this interfere with your job, or…?”

“What is it you need?” Kara asks, voice still tight with irritation, and Cat has to bite back the ‘you’ that threatens to escape if she’s not careful.

She rattles off a list of demands that will keep Kara busy (and, most importantly, away from her desk, where Cat can’t find her eyes straying towards her and wondering what the hell she’s going to say to her later), and sends her off with a wave of her hand.

She should have known that her plan wouldn’t have worked forever. There have been several instances over the past few days where she’d expected Kara to bring up her lapse in judgement, but she’d always bitten her tongue and looked away and Cat had felt a flash of relief each and every single time she’d escaped.

She knows that, barring some kind of miracle, she’s not getting out of this one, though.

Damn Kara _fucking_ Danvers and her stupid stuttering charm for making her feel so derailed.

She wonders if it’s too early for a drink.

Considering what had happened the last time she was drunk and she and Kara were alone, she wonders if it’s even a good idea in the first place.

The day passes more quickly than Cat would like, and before she knows it, the bullpen is clearing out around her. She’d sent Kara out on one last errand that she’d hoped would take her some considerable time, but she’d forgotten that Kara possessed superspeed (she’s pretty sure that _only_ a superhero would have been able to make it as her assistant, considering the impossibility of some of her demands), and she waltzes through Cat’s door at six, just after the last of her employees has left for the day.

She tosses the layouts that Cat had asked her to pick up on her way back onto her desk with a loud clatter. The force of it almost knocks over a framed photograph of Cat and Carter, and her glare is poisonous. Kara at least has the grace the look slightly remorseful, though she doesn’t apologise.

“Kiera, I - ”

“That’s not my name.” Kara’s arms are folded across her chest, her jaw tilted upwards in defiance. She’s wearing a black sleeveless dress today and Cat wonders if she’d chosen it on purpose this morning, if she’s trying to channel some of that red-Kryptonite confidence she’d shown on that awful day.

“ _Kiera_ ,” Cat repeats, not even a little ashamed to admit that the way Kara’s eyes flash angrily makes her stomach flip, as she rises from her chair and advances around the desk so that they’re stood on the same side of it, Cat leaning back against it with her hands resting at her sides. “What do you want? If you’re planning on filing a sexual harassment suit, I’d rather you told me straight up so that I could call my lawyer.”

It’s a low blow, because she knows that Kara would never do that to her – but it has the desired effect, if the wounded look that cross her face is anything to go by.

“What? No, I… I want an _explanation_ , Miss Grant.”

“An explanation?”

“You kissed me.” Cat wants to roll her eyes, wants to wonder aloud if the girl has any other words in her vocabulary, but she bites her tongue and waits for what comes next. “And I want to know why.”

“You want to know why I, a drunk and lonely old woman, kissed my attractive younger assistant?” Cat asks with an arched eyebrow, because any one of those things is reason enough, even if it does mean that Kara now knows she thinks she’s attractive.

She’d have to be blind not know it already, though. Surely the girl owns a mirror, even if she does seem to want to hide herself away behind baggy shirts and fluffy cardigans.

“That’s it?” Kara asks, disbelief colouring her tone. “You were lonely?”

“I was lonely and you were there,” Cat confirms, trying not to show how affected she is by Kara’s flinch. “And I apologise for my behaviour, which I regret not doing sooner. I thought if I brushed it off like it was nothing – which it _was_ ,” Cat stresses, because Kara’s still looking at her like she thinks maybe there’s something there, and Cat doesn’t know if she’ll be able to survive Kara challenging her, “then it would be easier for the both of us to forget and move on, but clearly I was wrong.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Which part?” Kara takes a step closer, and Cat doesn’t back down, sets her jaw and meets her gaze head-on.

“Any of it. You kissed me, and when I kissed you, you kissed me _back_.”

“Because perhaps it was an ego boost to think that someone like you could want someone like me,” she suggests, but Kara shakes her head.

“No.” She takes another step, and another, until they’re pressed flush together, and Cat can’t look away. “I think you want me but you’re too scared to admit it.”

Cat scoffs, and why, oh why, is the one person she falls for the only person that can see through her bullshit and into her very soul?

(Cat thinks that’s probably one of the reasons why she fell for her in the first place).

“I don’t get scared, Kiera.” She’s lying through her teeth, but she sees the flash of uncertainty start to bloom in Kara’s eyes and clings on to her resolve. “You’re very pretty, and I reacted to that the other night when I shouldn’t have. But there’s… there’s nothing between you and I. There never will be.”

“What if I want there to be?” She whispers the words like she’d never expected to say them at all, and Cat feels her heart clench, painfully tight in her chest. It’s all she’s ever dreamt of hearing, and everything she’d never wanted to, and it’s going to make this hurt the both of them that much more.

“You don’t,” Cat tells her, even though every word feels like she’s pressing a shard of glass into her own heart. “You don’t want me. You want the _idea_ of me.” Cat wonders how Kara could have ever fallen for her in the first place, when this is how she treats her. How she will always treat her. “And regardless, even if you did want me, it’s never going to happen because I don’t feel the same way.”

Kara’s sharp intake of breath feels like a knife wound, but Cat keeps her gaze steady, even as Kara shakes her head once more.

“I don’t believe you.” She leans even further forward, and Cat struggles to remember how to keep breathing. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice. I can hear your breath stutter when I bend down to pick something up from the floor, or when I lean over your desk and my shirt gapes open. I can hear your heart beat faster the closer I get to you. Right now it sounds like it’s trying to beat its way out of your chest.”

“Physical reactions to an attractive woman that I have absolutely no control over.” She’s thankful that her voice doesn’t waver, that it doesn’t break even though it wants to. It wants to break over the sound of Kara’s name as her hands drag her closer, wants to break over her asking for Kara’s forgiveness because she hasn’t meant a word that she’s said tonight.

But she bites her tongue, because Kara deserves better, will always deserve better, and Cat pushing her away will be the best thing that ever happens to her.

“Or maybe it’s because you want me.” Cat’s mouth opens with a denial, but before she can speak there are a pair of warm lips pressing against hers and the words die in her throat. It takes everything she has in her not to kiss Kara back, not to tangle a hand in her hair or at the back of her neck – instead she digs her fingers into the cool wooden desk at either side of her hips until her knuckles flash white.

When she pulls away, Kara looks horrified, and Cat hates the tears that she can see swimming in her eyes.

“I… Miss Grant… I… I’m sorry.” Her earlier bravado is long gone now as she takes several stumbling steps backwards, almost falling over the arm of one of her couches. “I didn’t… I did - ”

“It’s okay, Kiera,” Cat interrupts her stuttering apologies because she can’t bear to hear them, not when every word from Kara’s mouth so far that night had been the truth. “Just like last time, I’ll forget that this ever happened.”

Kara looks like she wants to say something else, but instead she just nods and turns on her heel to rush out of the door, and Cat thinks that the broken sob that she hears before Cat’s office door closes behind her will haunt her for many nights to come.

x-x-x

 

The third time it happens, Cat doesn’t even know who to blame anymore.

It’s three days after the second kiss, three days of Kara not being there at her desk every morning. Three days of a furious Cat asking Witt where Kara was, only for her to be told a stuttering excuse about her being sick when Cat is ninety-nine percent sure that, thanks to her alien metabolism, she doesn’t even _get_ sick.

It makes her furious.

She’d been expecting some lingering awkwardness, a desire for avoidance, perhaps, but not… _this_. Not silence whenever Cat calls her cellphone or sends her texts demanding to know where she is, not the itching temptation to show up at Kara’s door and tell her to stop being so ridiculous.

She’s decided to give Kara until Friday before she visits her home, but it turns out she doesn’t have to wait that long, after all.

Because she’s working late in her office on Thursday night when she hears the sound of heavy footsteps in the bullpen, and when she lifts her head she sees Kara stumbling into view, almost tripping over her own feet and catching herself using the corner of own desk, breathing out a muttered curse and squinting down at her hand.

“Kiera?” Cat calls, rising hesitantly to her feet, and when Kara whirls around she nearly falls over again and Cat frowns as she reaches her, can smell the alcohol on her breath from even a few feet away. “Are you… are you _drunk_?”

“I should have known that you’d be here.” Kara’s words are slurred, her laugh bitter, and it makes Cat feel sick. “Here to torture me some more.” She sways on her feet and Cat reaches out to make sure she doesn’t topple over – and quickly snatches her hand away when Kara flinches away from her touch like it might burn her.

“You haven’t been here for three days claiming to be ill, and you show up here drunk in the middle of the night? Is this some kind of joke to you?”

“I _was_ ill. And I’m only here because I broke my phone charger and I needed the spare one I keep in my desk.” She tugs at the drawer and nearly falls over again, and Cat hovers behind her, ready to catch her if she falls. “You weren’t supposed to still be here.”

“Yes, well, without an assistant I’ve been having to stay substantially later than normal.” Her words are barbed, but Kara doesn’t seem to take any notice of them. “I thought you couldn’t get drunk? Or sick?”

“I lost my powers,” Kara tells her as she turns around with her charger in her hand, and then she frowns, like she’s not sure she wants to be talking to Cat at all.

“So you got drunk?” Cat presses, because it sounds reckless and not like something Kara would normally do at all.

“I thought it might make me forget about you.” She sags back against the desk, and Cat draws in a sharp gasp at the defeated way the words sound. “Every time I close my eyes I see your face and I… I just wanted to forget. And it seems to work well for you,” she shoots her a bitter look, and Cat almost flinches away from it. “So I thought I’d try it.”

Cat feels guilt begin to eat her up from the inside – it’s always been there, lingering, since that first encounter, but this is the first time she’s seen Kara so affected, so _broken_ , and it’s all her fault and she hates herself for it.

“I wish I could hate you,” Kara whispers the words so softly that Cat almost doesn’t catch them. “That would make it so much easier.”

Cat agrees with that wholeheartedly, but she’s never been able to hate Kara for the way she makes her feel, no matter how hard she’s tried or how many times she’d wished it. She thinks she’s given Kara a lot more ammunition to despise her than Kara ever has her. All Kara had done was be herself.

“I-I’m sorry.” She rarely apologises, and they both know it, but it’s nowhere near enough to soothe the damage that she’s caused, and they both know that, too. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Yes, you did,” Kara fires back at her, hurt shining in those blue, blue eyes that haunt Cat every second of every day. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so… _cruel_.”

“It was the only way I could think of to keep you away.” She says it only because she wants to get Kara to stop looking at her like, like she _does_ hate her, and because she doesn’t think she’ll remember any of this in the morning, anyway.

“You didn’t have to keep me away. You could have had me, if you were only brave enough to admit it.” There’s a lump in Cat’s throat that makes it hard for her to swallow, and she hates the way that Kara can always manage to see through her. “But you’re too scared so you’d rather hurt me, hurt _yourself_ , than have something that both of us want.”

“It would never work.”

“You don’t _know_ that.” She does, and she wishes Kara could see that. “I need to go.” She pushes herself away from her desk and turns towards the elevators. “I need to… get away from you. I need to get you out of my _head_.”

“Kara - ” Cat catches her wrist in her hand before she can leave, because she’s drunk and she can barely walk in a straight line, is vulnerable in a way she’s never been before without her powers and Cat’s terrified for her. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“Well I don’t want to be with _you_.” She spits the word like it’s poison, but it’s not enough to make Cat drop her hold of Kara’s wrist.

“I didn’t mean me,” she replies quietly, trying to ignore the way Kara’s pulse is beating frantically beneath her fingers. “Is there someone I could call? James?” Kara shakes her head, and Cat sighs quietly, because he would be a much better fit for her than Cat ever would be. “Witt?” She shakes her head even more violently, and Cat sighs again. “Your sister?”

“I don’t want to explain to my sister why I felt the need to go and get blackout drunk,” Kara tells her, and Cat realises that the sister is the most important person in her life – she doesn’t want her to see her like this, so low and _sad_. “And I don’t think _you_ want me to, either.”

“Then I guess you’re stuck with me,” Cat tells her, because there’s no way she’s letting her out of this building to wander the streets alone.

“I don’t want you to babysit me.”

“You shouldn’t be on your own in a state like this - ”

“And whose fault is that, Cat?” Her words are loud, her hands balled into fists as she yanks her wrist from Cat’s grip. She’s angrier than Cat has ever seen her since that day where she’d thrown her off the edge of her balcony, and the memory makes her flinch back, because even though Kara is powerless right now that doesn’t mean that she isn’t capable of hurting her. “I-I’m sorry.” She says, apparently seeing the flash of fear that passes over Cat’s face, and she reaches a trembling hand to her head, runs it through her hair in frustration. “I didn’t mean to yell, I just… I don’t want your help.”

“But you need it,” Cat argues, and there’s a reluctance in Kara’s eyes that makes Cat thinks that she knows she’s right. “Let me call a car and take you home. I’ll leave the second I know your safe.”

“Why do you even care, Cat? You’ve shown in the past few days that you don’t give a flying fuck about me.”

“I care about you more than you’ll ever know,” Cat tells her, voice low and rough, before she turns away to call a car – she freezes when Kara reaches for her wrist this time, freezing her in place.

“Then why? Why have you done… any of this?”

“Because no matter how I feel, and no matter how you feel, you deserve better than me. And you always will.” She keeps her back to Kara as she says it, not feeling the need to lie to her anymore, not when she’s in such a state.

Cat’s never seen her like this, so small and sad and _unlike_ herself, and it terrifies her.

She never wants to see this happen again.

She never wants to be the _cause_ of this again.

At her words, Kara releases her hold. Cat doesn’t know if it’s from shock or something else, but she doesn’t run away whilst Cat makes the call to her driver, doesn’t say a word as they wait. She accepts the glass of water and the two Advil that Cat hands her, though, swallowing the two pills and the whole glass in a single gulp.

She’s quiet on the journey down to the car, makes no comment when Cat directs her into her private elevator with a sweep of her hand. It’s hard to notice anything other than the scent of vodka in the enclosed space, and Cat curls her hands into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms, hating herself for driving Kara into doing something like this, hating herself for ever letting something develop between them in the first place.

She should have been more _careful_. She should have either fired her or promoted her when she’d stated to realise that her feelings towards her were no longer just mere amazement that she was yet to drive her way.

But she’d been selfish and she’d wanted to keep her around, so she had held tightly to her and now she’s ruined the both of them by barely even lifting a finger.

Kara looks surprised when Cat rattles off her address to the driver once Cat’s helped her into the car – or tried to, anyway, because she brushes Cat’s hands away like she can’t stand to have Cat touching her, and nearly falls face-first onto the seat before she manages to right herself at the last second – Cat sliding in beside her and trying to maintain a careful distance between the two of them.

“Thank you,” she says quietly as she’s staring out the window and watching the city pass them by, and Cat jumps a little at the unexpected sound of her voice, turning to blink at her in surprise because she can’t think of a single thing Kara would be thankful to her for. “For looking after me,” she clarifies without Cat having to ask, eyes never straying from the window.

“Please don’t thank me for something I wouldn’t have to do in the first place if I hadn’t made a mistake.”

“That still all I am to you?” Kara’s still not looking at her, but Cat can see her expression twist in the reflection. “A mistake?”

“ _You_ were never a mistake. That kiss was a mistake, because it changed things, and I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“I don’t regret it,” Kara sighs, though Cat thinks she must, because how can she not? “I don’t regret knowing what it feels like to kiss you.” Cat squeezes her eyes shut tight to stop the tears that threaten to fall at Kara’s softly spoken words. “I just regret what came after.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is it worth it?” She finally turns then, doesn’t bother to reach up and wipe away the tears that she _has_ let fall, shining on her cheeks under the streetlights that flash by. “Staying away from me, hurting both of us... Do you really think it’s worth it?”

“I don’t know anymore,” she whispers, because it’s something she’d found herself wondering with increasing regularity every time she’d stepped off her elevator to find Witt waiting with her latte instead of Kara. “I thought it would be.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserve better.”

“But I want _you_.” The car comes to a stop before she can reply, and Cat looks quickly away, takes a deep breath and curls her hand around the door handle, stepping out onto the street and waiting for Kara to join her. “You don’t have to come up,” Kara tells her, though she looks unsteady as she moves towards the door of the apartment complex. “I know you’re probably afraid you might catch something if you stay in this neighbourhood too long.”

“I… I’d like to make sure you get inside safely.” Cat knows she lives on the fourth floor, and she doesn’t trust this building to have a working elevator, doesn’t trust _Kara_ to make it up four flights unscathed. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Whatever,” Kara mutters before stomping towards the door, and Cat tells her driver to wait whilst she hurries after her. She was right about the elevator situation, and she walks closely behind Kara as she traipses up the stairs just in-case she looks likely to fall (Cat’s not entirely sure what she’ll be able to do to remedy the situation if she _does_ , other than by breaking her fall, but she’s hoping she doesn’t have to find out).

They make it to her door without incident, and when Kara shoves the door open before strolling inside, leaving it open behind her, Cat takes that as an invitation to come in.

It’s tiny but homely, and exactly the kind of place that Cat would have imagined Kara to live in.

“Do you have coffee?” Cat asks as she closes the door behind her, and Kara rolls her eyes as she struggles to yank her jacket from her shoulders.

“I’m not making you a latte.”

“I meant for _you_ ,” Cat replies with a hint of exasperation, folding her arms across her chest to avoid reaching out to help Kara out of her jacket. “It’ll help sober you up.”

“Kitchen,” is all Kara offers her, and Cat sighs, making her way over to that part of the apartment and riffling through drawers until she finds what she’s looking for. Whilst she’s brewing it she allows her eyes to wander around the apartment, to take in the beautiful paintings that hang on the walls, intermingled with a number of photographs of Kara, both as a teenager and an adult.

She’s sitting on the couch when Cat takes her the coffee, her head tilted against the back of it and her eyes closed, though they flicker open when she feels Cat looking down at her. She just grunts as Cat hands her the coffee, lifting it to her lips and blowing gently before taking a long sip.

“You’re going to have a killer hangover in the morning,” Cat tells her, but Kara doesn’t respond. “I’d put some Advil by your bed, and a glass of water for when you wake up.” She has enough experience dealing with them, after all. “I’ll… I’ll leave you to rest. I’ll understand if you’re not at your desk tomorrow morning, but I expect you there on Monday.” Kara just looks up at her, and Cat sighs. “Take care of yourself, Kara.”

“Wait.” She stops her as she’s halfway through the door, mug clattering onto her coffee table as she scrambles around the side of the couch. Cat pauses, even though she shouldn’t – she should keep walking, because she’s already said too many things she shouldn’t have tonight. “Did you mean everything you said before?”

“Yes.”

“And everything you said the other night?”

“A lie, to push you away. That clearly didn’t work.” She mutters that last part quietly, but she thinks, from the sharp look that Kara throws her, that she heard it anyway.

“Because you think you don’t deserve me. Because you think we won’t work out.” Cat just nods, a little sharply, because she’s said it all already and she doesn’t know what the _point_ of this is. “Don’t I get a say in it? In whether I think you deserve me? Of whether I think we’d work?”

“Why do you even want this, Kara?” Her voice is quiet, because that’s the one thing she doesn’t _understand_. “After everything I’ve done… I’ve always been hellish to you, I’ve never showed you an ounce of kindness - ”

“Yes, you have,” Kara scoffs. “Maybe not in ways that other people would see, but I _know_ you. I know that, even if you pretend to complain about it, you’ll always offer me advice when I need it. I know that, even when the rest of the city – including my _friends_ – lost faith in me, you never did, and you never will. I know that you try not to snap at me the day after something particularly bad happens in the city because you’re worried about the things I’ve seen. I know that, even though you hate them, you keep a bowl of peanut M &M’s next to the chocolate ones because you know that I like them better. I know that you call me Kiera because you think it’ll keep you emotionally distant, but you call me Kara whenever something important is happening. I know that, even though it’d be the biggest story of your career, you’re keeping my secret because you know it’d hurt me if it ever got out there. You do show me kindness, Cat. You show it to me every single day.”

Cat feels her eyes fog with tears at Kara’s words, her heart beating a frantic rhythm in her chest and god, she doesn’t deserve her. She doesn’t deserve someone like this, so soft and bright, open and warm; Cat doesn’t want to warp her into something neither of them recognise like she’d managed in her first marriage.

“You might not understand why I fell for you, but _I_ do. It’s because of who you are, everything about you. A hundred thousand reasons, and I’ll tell you every single one of them every day if you’d just… give me a chance. Give _this_ a chance.” Kara takes an unsteady step forward until she’s in-front of Cat, reaching for her hands with trembling fingers. “Are you happy, right now, with how things are?”

“I think you know the answer to that question.” Kara’s gaze is heavy, and it makes her want to sink into her arms and never let go.

“Then why fight it, Cat? Why are you still keeping your distance? Why are you trying to push me away?”

“Because I could hurt you so much more badly when this ends.”

“ _If_ ,” Kara stresses, but Cat just scoffs because she’s young and idealistic and she doesn’t know that love can _change_. “I know you think I deserve better but if it’s not you then I don’t _want_ better. I want you, all of you – even the parts of you that yell at me for getting your lunch order even the tiniest bit wrong.” Cat feels her lips twitch in spite of herself at Kara’s gentle smile.

“I don’t want to ruin you.”

“Then trust that you won’t,” Kara breathes, leaning down and resting her forehead against Cat’s, breath hot on her lips. “Trust me not to _let_ you.” She’s kissing her, then, and this time Cat doesn’t hold herself back.

She curls a hand in Kara’s hair and lets herself be pushed back against the wall beside the door, sighing as Kara’s body settles against her, her hands hot on Cat’s hips. It’s open-mouthed and messy and it makes her heart race, even though the taste of vodka is heavy on Kara’s tongue.

“You’re drunk,” she says when Kara pulls back, forehead pressing against hers once more as they try to catch their breath. “You probably won’t even remember any of this in the morning.”

“You’re going to remind me if I forget.”

“Oh?” She tilts her head back against the wall and raises an eyebrow, and Kara hums. “And why’s that?”

“Because you want this as much as I do, and I think you’re tired of trying to stay away.” Kara is warm against her, her eyes brighter than Cat has seen them since that night when everything had changed, and she wonders if maybe there is a chance for them, after all.

She wonders if she can open her heart up enough to Kara to be able to try.

“Stay the night,” Kara murmurs, and Cat freezes against her, watches her roll her eyes. “Not like _that_. I just… I don’t want to be alone right now. And I know Carter’s at his Dad’s and you hate sleeping in an empty apartment. And I don’t want you to talk yourself out of this for stupid reasons when you’re back at your place drinking scotch on your balcony.”

“You might not even _want_ this in the morning,” Cat points out, because she thinks drunk Kara is much more willing to forget the pain Cat’s inflicted on her over the past few weeks than hungover, sober Kara will be in the morning.

“I will,” Kara promises, and then she’s taking her hand and dragging her towards her bed. “Call your driver and tell him you’re staying. Please?” Cat hesitates, because she’s still not entirely sure that any of this is a good idea, and Kara sighs. “We’ll talk about in the morning, I promise. But right now I just want to sleep and if you’re going to push me away again the light of day I think… I think I’d like to know what it feels like to fall asleep with you in my arms, even just once.”

Cat doesn’t know if she can argue with that logic, so she doesn’t try.

Instead she borrows some of Kara’s clothes and tries to ignore the way they feel against her skin, the way they surround her with the scent of her laundry detergent that will no doubt linger on her skin come morning.

She lets Kara pull her into her arms without complaint, closes her eyes and thinks she will sleep more soundly than she has in a long, long time, even if the sheets are rough against her skin, because Kara is warm against her back, breath tickling the back of her neck and arms wrapped securely around her waist.

Cat doesn’t know what the morning will hold, but she finds that she can’t wait to find out.


End file.
